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It must be Christmas — the FTSE100 flatlined and sterling was sluggish as traders wound down for the holidays.
London trading finished early Tuesday and won’t reopen until Friday. The FTSE 100 index
UKX, +0.11%
closed almost unchanged at 7,633.09.
The pound
GBPUSD, +0.0928%
was slightly lower after its sizable fall on Monday, as traders banked recent rises after a three-month rally. Dealers are bracing themselves for the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, but such an event would be at least a year away.
“It has been a lackluster trading session as not much happened in Asia overnight so traders in Europe have been left uninspired. A lack of major geopolitical news has caused market volatility to be low,” said David Madden, a market analyst at CMC Markets U.K.
“If markets are moving aggressively in one direction or the other, it often sparks interest from other dealers to get involved as the fear of missing out kicks in. Well, in today’s case, the lack of movement more failed to entice other traders off the fence. The German market is closed and seeing as one of the major players in Europe is shut, it adds to the muted mood,” he added.
Stocks on the move
NMC Health
NMC, +0.14%
shares slipped after the FTSE-100 hospital operator jumped more than 35% on Monday. Investors took profits after the stock had soared on news it launched an independent review of alleged financial mismanagement made by a short seller.
Reports of low numbers of U.K. shoppers walking into shopping centres and high street stores appeared lift online retailers such as ASOS
ASC, +4.06%
and Boohoo
BOO, +2.20%.
Shares of those companies rose 4% and 2%, respectively.
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